Dear everyone who probably doesn't care to learn any more about me than you already know, I'm about to tell you another useless fact about me.  Ever since I can remember, I have been in love with a string of movies that have all played some kind of part in my odd upbringing.  I'm about to talk about one of them (and I will probably at some point tell you about all of them...just not tonight because, you know, I have a paper on Larry Stylinson to write).

                So anyway, if you ask me now what my favorite Disney movie is, I will say without a moment's hesitation that it is Peter Pan, followed closely by Hercules.  Probably between seven and ten years ago, however, I would have said Anastasia.  The obvious reason for the change is that Anastasia is definitely not a Disney movie.  It's a 20th Century Fox movie.  Poor, poor ignorant me.

                (But it's actually directed by two former Disney animation directors, so I can't be too hard on myself.)

                For those of you who have no idea what Anastasia is, here is the IMDb official description:  The last surviving member of the Russian Royal Family joins two con men to reunite with her grandmother, the Dowager Empress, while the undead Rasputin seeks her death.

                Essentially, it's a play on the legend of the Grand Duchess Anastasia escaping the execution of her family (although historically, it wasn't actually Anastasia who had survived, it was one of her sisters, and then I'm pretty sure she ended up dying as well anyway soon after).  Anastasia's father was Tsar Nicholas II and the Dowager Empress is his mother.  The movie has a ton of historical inaccuracies, so if that kind of stuff really bothers you when watching movies, you should probably avoid this one.  But if you can look past that and just take this new version of the story as it is, watching this movie will be much more enjoyable.

                But yeah, so the movie follows the orphaned Anya, newly eighteen, as she tries to find her family and/or home with the help of a little puppy named Pooka and a necklace she's had since before she can remember that says "Together in Paris."  Meanwhile, the Dowager Empress is offering a large sum of money for the return of her missing granddaughter Anastasia, and con men Dimitri — who used to work in the palace before the Russian Revolution — and Vlad are trying to find a woman to pretend to be Anastasia in order to get the Dowager Empress's reward money.  He bumps into Anya, who was told to find him if she wanted to get to Paris, and so Dimitri and Vlad decide to turn Anya into Anastasia, unaware that she actually is Anastasia.  While all of this is happening, Rasputin, the man who sold his soul to destroy the Romanovs in the beginning of the movie, is trying to kill her since she had escaped him the first time. 

                I will probably have to include some spoilers, but I'm going to do my best to keep them to a minimum.  It's just that there are some things in this movie that I need to discuss with y'all  I'm going to put them into list form to keep this more organized, but just...  I beg you to watch this movie.  I beg you.  Especially if you love Disney movies, because if this was produced by Disney (and was exactly the same as how it is now) it would easily be Disney's greatest creation, I just...

                So anyway.

Reasons this movie is one of the best things that's ever happened to me:

Meg Freaking Ryan

·         It's no secret that When Harry Met Sally... is one of my favorite movies ever, so you can imagine my excitement when I figured out that the queen behind Sally voices Anya.  One of Anastasia's biggest assets is how sassy and snarky Anya is, and I'm pretty positive that nobody could pull it off the way Meg Ryan does.  If you don't see this movie for any other reason, do it because of Meg Ryan's Anya.

Dimitri

·         AKA my first crush.  I don't care if he's animated.  He's attractive.  And don't use the cover of the movie as a reference because they royally (ha, see what I did there) messed up his face, like, worse than the Flynn Rider situation on Tangled.  Also can you say cHaRaCtEr DeVeLoPmEnT?  Honestly I'm still in love with him.  This love affair will last a life time.

THE MUSIC

·         This would be the second reason I'd tell you to see this movie if Meg Ryan doesn't do it for you.  Every single song on this freaking movie is a jam.  To this day I still prance around my house singing "Rumor In St. Petersburg" and "Learn to Do It" to my irritated family members, and those aren't even the best songs.  They're all just so solid, I mean, whoever wrote them all, I bow down.  Even the credit song is golden, like how?? 

Its quotability (not a word, but we're gonna pretend)

·         Can we just discuss some of genius lines in this movie?  Granted a lot of them are from Anya, whom, as I said, is a sassy eighteen-year-old, but it's not just her.  Literally every character is precious, and when they speak, I just want to bottle up everything they say and take it with me wherever I go (I believe that is actually possible in the form of saving the audio to my iTunes library, but anyway).  Here are some gems:

o    Anastasia: "Men are such babies."

o    Dimitri: "Look, I think we got off on the wrong foot."

Anya: "Well, I think we did too.  But, I appreciate your apology."

Dimitri: "Who said anything about an apology?  I was just saying that — "

Anya: "Please don't talk anymore.  It's only going to upset me."

Dimitri: "Fine.  I'll be quiet if you be quiet."

Anya: "Alright, I'll be quiet."

Dimitri: "Fine."

Anya: "Fine."

Dimitri: "Fine."

Anya: "Fine...  So you think you're gonna miss it?"

Dimitri: "Miss what?  Your talking?"

Anya: "No!  Russia."

Dimitri: "Nope."

o    Bartok: "Master!  You're alive?"

Rasputin: "In a manner of speaking."

[Rasputin's eyeball pops out of his head; Bartok catches it.]

Bartok: "Woah.  That fell right out there, sir."

Bartok

·         So, if you guys were confused about who Bartok is, let me clear things up: he's a bat.  He's a little white bat who is Rasputin's sidekick and he is fabulous.  You'll love him.  I won't say any more because the element of surprise will be best when first being introduced to him.

The ship of all ships: Danya

·         Honestly before I even knew what shipping was, I shipped Dimitri and Anya together SO HARD.  You'll all understand once you watch this movie.  They're both so annoyingly frustrating and stubborn and sassy and they're literally perfect.  I watch this movie now and I basically just yell "KISS!  KISS!  KISS!" at them the entire time (in my head, of course).  Yeah.  Danya for life.

                I don't want to give anyway any more of the movie, so I'm going to stop myself before this becomes super long, but what I want you to take away from this movie is that it's essentially perfect.  If you haven't seen this movie already, I feel so sorry for you.  But also not, because if you watch this movie for the first time as a teenager or a young adult, you're going to be like "what the actual heck" due to all the strange things that occur (like Rasputin's eye falling out, for example...but weirder things happen to him hahahaha).  You'll love it, though.  You'll be upset you didn't see it sooner.

                If you've seen the movie already, comment below so we can fangirl over it!  Anastasia and fangirling are two of my favorite things, so I would love to do that with you.  And if you watch the movie for the first time after reading this, please tell me all your thoughts!  Live tweet your reactions even, and let me know you're doing that so I can read them!  I just...  This movie is my heart and soul.  I hope you all love it as much as I do.

                Also I low-key aspire to be as perfect as Anya, no big deal.